Tipping?

I've changed my mind. I actually think that Mrs Browne-Sanders is going to lose her case against Isiah and the Knicks. Earlier I thought she had a slam dunk case that was going to really tear apart the Knicks and bring down Isiah but now......

Well that ain't to say her story isn't the truth. I wont get into a judgment call cause it seems like its a classic case of he say she say (I heard it through the gravevine, no static got an automatic , too much of anything can make you an addict). However the Knicks have really closed ranks and paraded a slew of staff who have done a number on Browne-Sander's credibility, professionalism and abilities. Mind you most harassment cases go this way but lets just say I think any jury would probably have a bit of doubt now regarding her claims. Also didn't help that this one former intern that Browne Sanders claims slept with Knicks player Stephon Marbury against her wishes came out and said the sex was consensual. Could be a case of big business just buying off or scaring folk into testifying for them or could not be. That said I think she loses the case and Isiah continues grinning.

Yesterday's Toronto Star had an article about Asian-Canadian fishermen who have been recently assaulted up near Sutton (about an hour north of T-dot).

"Typically, young adults drive around in the middle of the night seeking out Asian fisherman standing near piers and bridges. Then they'll push them into the water and sometimes steal or damage their fishing gear."

OK I get it, country folks ain't got nothing better to do right? Ever heard of cable?

Look no matter how they talk about this, its racist plain and simple. Then the police are apparently taking this lightly. That just plays really badly in terms of the image of that community. Plus, they actually have a name for it up there....nippertipping. What the hell? You think folks are animals that you can just randomly walk up to them and throw them in the lake. You think they find this funny? You think randomly assaulting someone in general is funny?

One guy is in hospital because of an incident related to this but they're trying to play it down as oh just a random assault. Come on admit it was racial motivated and deal with this.

And in other actually rather ironic news since I just decried racism against Asian-Candians (and I stand by that stance), China is a racist state ain't it? Makes one wonder why so many Caribbean nations are in bed with these guys. Feel sorry for this yout though.

"The detainees included 22-year-old Joslyn Whiteman, son of Grenada's ambassador. One witness said he saw police grab Mr Whiteman and beat him repeatedly, despite onlookers crying out, "Stop! He's a diplomat!" According to the South China Morning Post, Mr Whiteman spent the night in a hospital with concussion."

It sure is going to be interesting to see how next years Olympics plays out. Maybe we need a new Jesse Owens.

Oh and before I go, I knew there was a reason for this blog. Anyone catch Bill O'Reilly's comments about his visit to a black restaurant in Harlem? Apparently he couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between this black run restaurant and others in the city. Dude commented "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, '[Expletive], I want more iced tea!' . . . There wasn't any kind of craziness at all."

You know I knew O'Reilly was an idiot but I just think this comment is interesting cause you know he's not the only person who thinks that the only way black folks can communicate is through swearing. Mind you it doesn't help when David Banner goes before congress and swears in his testimony (of course I don't see the point to hearings on rap, I never heard any hearings into violence in Hollywood movies and they make lots more money). Blame the media, blame rappers, blame BET, blame whoever but there are a lot of misguided beliefs about black folk in this society. And its sad. No wonder nooses are back in fashion down south and Chinese are kicking our asses. How long till Cross burning catches on again?

Public Service Announcement

gal in a de punny printer! by far!
punny printer - panhead

Memo to all women:

There is an upper size limit to those of you that can successfully wear pum pum shorts and look good. Its just a fact accept it!

Like the white lady Friday, who weighing in at oh lets say somewhere from 195 to 220 on a 5 foot 5 frame got on my bus that morning. She din no young yam either so she should have known better than to be wearing those short, short white tight pum pum shorts and the green even tighter shirt that was barely covering her rather circular, protruding stomach.

Now don't get me wrong I not dissing the lady cause she was big. No not at all. Au contraire, in the right clothing she could have looked decent maybe even quite fetching actually cause she wasn't an ugly woman and there was something rather mesmerizing about watching her run ,with a swiftness belying her girth, across the road with parts jiggling in slow motion trying to hail down the bus driver. Or maybe mesmerizing is the wrong word to use there but I couldn't take my eyes off her cause I was really frighten that something was going to jiggle loose or dem tight pants were going to split as she sprinted and she would have embarrassed herself when the whole outfit buss off by the bus door and expose all her particulars.

And then ya know what? After she had successfully gotten onto the bus without mishap, now moving even closer to my line of sight so I could really see just how ridiculously tight the pants were, in fiddling in her bag for her bus tokens she dropped said tokens and something else from her bag.

Well to paraphrase Paul Keens, who tell she to do that? Next thing I know the woman bending over facing me. And I, the one day I didn't sit near the back of the bus cause I say I had too many bags and getting out before the station and didn't feel like lugging things all the way back there, silently screaming as I seeing what I aint suppose to see cause I don't know her like that, close close up to my face like I have high def, IMAX three-d, objects in the mirror are closer than they appear vision. Lawd ave mercy!

So now she bend over and her bottom staring at we and we can see things print out and colors of things underneath and what not and I there wondering to myself is what kinda space age, super tensile strength material dem shorts mek out of that stopping all dat from popping loose at de seams?

I don't know boy but I hear some loud snickers from the back where sitting were three lil force ripe young gals about 14 or 15 in too much makeup, including one who was juss juss talking two minutes before about how "her ex boy friend really knew how to work it". Lawd ave his mercy talk about jaw drop. cuhdear

But see what I mean? When you wear them sort of things like pum pum shorts as a big woman and I mean that in terms of both size and age and ya don't look decent or at least good , ya duz get laff at by even little pickney.

So as a public service announcement to that lady and others like her please, please, oh please use some discretion in dressing. Everything don't look good on everybody.

Now if you'll pardon me I'm still screaming silently inside wondering if jucking out muh eyeballs wud help, so I going to my therapy session. Oh the horror, the horror!

Coming of Age

Need to get this written.

First off let me say that I've always believed that there are some things that you just have to experience to understand. For women, natural childbirth comes to mind as one of those things, for men getting hit in the groin another. I've always also thought, well always being relative to my having experienced/currently experiencing them, that marriage and parenting are two of those things that you have to experience in order to really understand. Well maybe not understand but lets just say until you've experienced these things for yourself no matter how much you think you know you probably really don't know.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not relating marriage and parenting to the pain of a kick in the groin although sometimes well .......... and I'm also not saying that you cant relate or you shouldn't have your opinions on both issues if you haven't personally experienced them yet. No God forbid! Not me I wouldn't say that. I'm just saying there are certain experiences that undergoing them just gives you insights that you wouldn't normally have without the actual experience.

Oh and don't read this as some attempt to get y'all married or to tell wunnah to go out and get pickney. I've never been an advocate and I mean that not that I don't enjoy them both (some of the time at least0 but I'll be damned if I'm the brother to be extolling the virtues of these things and then have somebody stupid go and get a child they cant afford to raise or go and get married cause I say so and it end up in a divorce. No star, you got to know for yourself what you getting into. Looking at what other people have don't mean you going to get the same. Follow pattern Kill Cadogan (old bajan saying). Remember that.

Anyway, I remember as a child hearing some people saying stuff like 'this chile gine gimme enemies'. At that time I never really understood what that meant and maybe in truth I'm still misinterpreting that statement but after the crap me and my wife have been through in the past two weeks with regards to our son I think I have my own perspective on that phrase.

I always found it weird that my parents remember details of things related to my childhood from way back involving negative situations where they think I was being singled out, mistreated or 'unfaired' as we would say in Barbados, or where they basically thought things shouldn't have gone as they should. And years later they still take those incidents so personally too. Strange I thought, y'all needs to chill.

Meanwhile as far as I was concerned some of the incidents I barely remember actually happening or my recollections are basically culled from the stories being told but the stories could as well be episodes of my favourite TV series cause to me I'm just seeing everything from the third person.

Some of the incidents I view as rather trivial now because I think I turned out OK (my opinion certainly not others) despite them happening but my parents still manage to get mad heated anytime they come up in conversation. I never could understand that ..... until now.

Now I understand why parents take their kids ish so personal. Now I understand why parents if they don't remain calm can go off on soccer refs or teachers or well just go off in situations.

I can handle my own personal beef. Experience just teaches you how to handle stuff. Hell I usually just laugh off most of the crap I go through cause I know I can handle it. But when it comes down to my child.......

Yea ummm I think I gine have some issues.

I don't think I've ever had a more miserable two weeks and been as utterly pissed off as I've been lately with the drama I had to deal with. I've basically been trying to be outwardly unemotional about it cause well I'm usually an unemotional dude and I'm also the person who has to be the logical unemotional one and steady the ship. Its my role I accept it, it is what it is. But still there were some points where hmmm well boy lets just say if I had two big rocks certain folk would have gotten their head buss open! Trust me!

Naa that aint my way still but lets just say its difficult to be cool in certain situations. Look, I basically withdrew from society (and yes that included email and msn) for the last two weeks cause I know I wasn't good company and something I might have taken in jest a few days before was fittin' to set a brother on some World War Hulk ish. (Actually if I communicated with you this week beyond hi you must consider yourself a true friend and one of the inner circle.)

But anyways lets just say I understand my parents a lot better now and its because of this experience. Without it I might be able to sort of grasp the concept but its so much more real after experience. I understand a lot better that whole protective instinct and that whole ready to mess someone up because of my child thing. The whole drawing a line in the sand, the whole circling the wagons, the whole gladiator stance with regards to your progeny.

As it is I think its going to be one of those situations that my kid when he's at an older age is going to be like so this is a big deal how exactly but for me....... Yea lets just say that this chile gine gimme enemies fa real. And he could be a teenager, an adult, maybe even 50 years old and as long as I'm living and I'm not senile I aint going to forget this shit either and I'm still going to take it personal and I'm still going to have that urge to throw two big rocks at certain people. Word!

PS: don't ask for more info, its the Internet and I said what I had to say. Leff it there.

Barber

Ok I'm not one for posting videos in this blog but I just felt like sharing this one with you guys since I know the author (is author the correct word to use for a video presentation?) and I just think its worth watching.

Big up afropan!

Dumb and Dumber

1) OJ! sigh! What can I say? Were you worried you were fading from the spotlight? Dude last time you got away with murder, maybe literally. You're also quite possibly the most hated black man in the US. Why would you push your luck? Were you upset that Mike Vick and Pacman Jones were getting all the current evil NFLer press? Is that it?

2) Isiah Thomas. Oh yea buddy way to explain your use of the B word. eediat!

3) Jose Garbajosa. Yea I said it, Jose Garbajosa. As a Raptors fan this guy has pissed me off this summer. He broke his leg, he rehabbed, Raptors doctors wouldn't give him clearance to play in the European Championship so he gets his own insurance, gets clearance from Spain's doctors and plays anyways. Ok so granted I understand the whole nationalistic stance and wanting to play for your country but at the same time Spain had already qualified for the Olympics prior to the tournament and your leg isn't 100%. Plus odds are in order to get to 100% you'll need more surgery. So you decided to play for Spain this summer when you could have had the surgery that your needed instead. Now you'll probably get to Raptors training camp and fall apart within a month of the season then have surgery and miss the entire season. All the while being paid by the Raptors. That's to me is like you have just dealt a b* slap to the entire Toronto fandom collective with your actions. Boy and they complain that home grown NBA players are childish haughty and own way! I do hope you stay semi-healthy so we can trade you but alas I know that wont happen. Enjoy the season on the sidelines.

The Better Way

Well just as expected the almost bi-annual dance the TTC does with public transit users in Toronto has ended in a fare increase. This one quite substantial. What dance you ask? You know the one. The one where they complain that they have no money because the City and the Province refuse to help or threatened to cut back funds and they are left with no choice but to place the costs of a declining transit system on our shoulders.

Well what can ya do?

I suppose one can resort to driving but those who live here know that the roads are already crowded almost to capacity and that navigating downtown Toronto can be a slow moving nightmare even if you can get past the fact that paying anything less than $10 a day in parking is seen as a pretty nice deal here.

Or I guess we could all start looking for jobs or schools in the 905 area at least there you probably wouldn't have the high parking costs associated with downtown Toronto.

This whole fare increase thing is ironic on so many levels. First the TTC does a survey where basically your only options are decrease service or increase fares. Well duhh what do you think most people who are dependent on the service are going to say? Its like sitting between the proverbial rock and the hard place or sitting at a domino table where your only choice is which one of your opponents wins. If you pass the guy playing out of your hand his partner wins and if you don't pass him he wins. Trust me been there many a time. You are squeezed!

Then you have a City in Toronto and a province in Ontario that have been pushing public transit like crazy because well Toronto in terms of getting to and from downtown just wasn't built for swift travel by cars. Unlike most major metropolises the builders of this city rightly or perhaps not choose to put an emphasis on people and livability over car and goods movement. It all sounds so noble until you're stuck in rush hour on the DVP or Gardiner cussing those damn incompetent planners.

You also have that environmental factor. We are forever bombarded by signs pushing us to take the TTC, limit the number of smog days, increase air quality be kind to your environment etc etc. Leave the car at home take the TTC, its THE BETTER WAY they say. Gee well those messages run sort of contradictory to fare increases don't they?

Then you have this whole issue with expansion. How is it that politicians can find money or at least talk of money for subway expansion when they wont even give the TTC money for the existing system to run properly? Oh I guess expansion gets more press and more votes. My bad I would think you'd try to consolidate, fix and attempt to operate what you already have existing first but that probably makes too much sense.

Of course the bottom line, the real problem, the root of the need for these repeated fare increases probably isn't what most people think it is. Its not that TTC is wasting money or overpaying its staff or the like although one does sometimes question how they negotiate with their unions. Its the fact that despite all the emphasis or maybe its just lip service paid to public transit here in Toronto that the TTC is the only transit agency in North America that pays like 70-80% of its operating costs directly out of its fare receipts. In other cities its somewhere along 40%. That's why a monthly pass in Montreal is about 1/2 the cost of one here.

How'd we get so special? Come on now buses and subways and streetcars are a public service aren't they? They are for the benefit of the public. We pay our taxes its supposed to go into health care and garbage collection and snow removal and stuff like public transit. The government needs to put some of the tax money back into running public transit instead of always squeezing the public via new taxes or fare increases. Used to be that the TTC was thought of as one of the best public transit services in North America. Now ummm not so much.

Oh well I'm sure in two years time we'll see the same dance repeated with the same outcome.

VMA

I don't really watch award shows. Usually don't remember they are on and I'm not really that interested anyways. Can't stand 95% of today's popular music and as much as I try to keep abreast of what's supposedly 'hot' somewhat out of a morbid sense of curiosity and to be able to chronicle the demise of our society I'm just not that interested in who's wearing what from whom and what trite comments they have to say at the event.

Only thing less interesting may be listening to Kanye and 50 'debate' whose album will be the worse tomorrow. "The only way they win is if we battle to see who is the wackest".

Still I did peruse some articles on the VMAs since it seemed like every news site had some story on Britney and her terrible performance. But I just found it interesting how much news print was devoted to how out of shape Britney looks. I mean I saw the pictures, Here's one:

Seriously whats wrong with her here? ok so she's bigger than she was before but its not like she's bordering on a Rosanne Barr size or anything. She just had two kids and she's still packing some baby fat. And it aint even that much, she just looks like she's eating now instead of skipping meals. Look media people absence of 6-pack does not equal paunch ok. And everyone cant be Paris Hilton bony. Come on now.

If you tell me Britney's performance was terrible, she looked tired or she was way out of sync, cool I'll take your word for it but going on and on about her weight seems a bit out there.

Clearly though this is a North American showbiz thing cause no Caribbean people wasn't going say so. Ya ever see some of the women dat duz pour themselves into tiny tiny tiny costumes for Caribana, Carnival and Crop Over? Alright then, that is all I'm saying.

Then there was this total fiasco and it wasn't Lupe.


I only have two questions. What da?? and why Chile why?

Ok so the girl in the photo is called Lil Mama and apparently she's some sort of rapper with clearly mental issues.

I mean cheese on bread, is Halloween come early or what? Who leaves home looking like this? And by leaving home I mean even stepping out to the curb to pick up the newspaper or put out the garbage. Who would leave home and go to a big award show with adults and be dressed like this with a soother in their mouth? I can just imagine the red carpet commentary.

Interviewer: Ummm ammm And that's quite an interesting dress Lil Mama.

Lil Mama: Yea yeah, ummm it was designed by my homie Lil Miss Muffet. Yo on the real she be mad creative when she chilling down at the Tuffet getting mad lifted off that Curds and Whey yaknowhatimean! Big up Miss Muffet you representing girl!

Interviewer: And those lovely accessories, the baby soother?

Lil Mama: Yea yeah that was my own creation, my own addition cause I know how to accessorize cause I'm fly like that. knowhwatisaying? Look for Lil Mama's line of baby soothers coming to a store near you soon cause see I gots to diversify my portfolio. Knowhatimean? Yo yo peep this! What had happened was that Miss Muffet originally wanted me to rock the shepherd's crook and two matching black belly sheep but I wasn't having that plus what I had said was "Miss Muffet is you crazy? where the hell I'm going to find me some black belly sheep from around the hood huh?" She know full well aint no sheep where we from? I mean I coulda borrowed me a couple a pit bulls from Mike Vick around the way but sheep? They be scarcer than banks in the hood! ha ha I'm juss playing about the pitbulls man.

Sigh! I could go on with the ridicule but I'm too busy shaking my head in disgust and waiting for Lil Mama to change her name to Lil Bo Peep.

Affordable?

(Pardon me I've forgotten how to blog)

I see this show on tv yesterday as I was flipping de channels. De woman on de show was some sort of styler or stylist or something so and she was showing the people back-to-school fashions. Dem did look ranging from so so to alright in my opinion except there was this one model wearing a skirt that look like a purple garbage bag but otherwise I cant complain too much. the clothes din look too bad-deish. I wasn't going to be running out to buy nuttin them but they wasn't too bad still.

Sort of chic though if that is the word that I should be using, yes sort of chic. Fellas wearing slacks and nice sweaters and ting so. All in all a little above the usual gangsta gear I duz see alot a dese school men and women walking bout Scarborough wearing. Cause I think all dese youngstas bout hayso duz feel dem is badjohns but then again I feel that is a common Scarborough motif. I neva meet so many people pretending to be hard in me life till I life up this side.

Anyways as I was saying I watch this show. And the part that get me is that the woman de styler, stylist keep telling the host a de show about how affordable the clothes is. Then she buss out wid yes "that whole outfit can be put together for less that 500 dollars" . Well one was less that 300 the other less than 500 but she still use the word affordable for both.

Now I don't know bout how wunna stay financially but I know dat when I was a student that word student was a alias for, pockets on E, broke as hell. I wasn't wearing no 300 dollar outfits. In fact if I had 300 dollars and was actually willing to spend it all on clothing which I probably wouldn't it would have had to buy me about a week or two weeks worth a clothing not juss one outfit. And I know I couldn't have been the only one cause I know how students stay in general. Is like what bajansistren ask me when I tell she bout the show; "300 who? Wait we buying outfits for the whole class right?"

But back to this styler, stylist woman. She like she don't remember she student days at all. I don't know who she marketing 300 dollar outfits to as affordable. Or maybe I just missing the point cause I guess all these brand name things duz sell and as far as I can tell from the price tags dem doan be the most affordable even to a fella like me that holing down a steady job. Still I feel is back to school fashion not back to Wall street fashion. 300 dollars for one outfit look far from affordable to me.

That is why I like school uniform boy. Slap dem in some khaki pants and a shirt and forget all this brand name 300 dollar outfits.